William Wood - The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolfe
workmanship. This, with a salmon-rod from my uncle
Wat, your flies, and my own guns, put me in a condition
to undertake the Highland sport. We have plays, we
have concerts, we have balls, with dinners and suppers
of the most execrable food upon earth, and wine that
approaches to poison. The men of Glasgow drink till
they are excessively drunk. The ladies are cold to
everything but a bagpipe - I wrong them - there is not
one that does not melt away at the sound of money.'
By the end of this year, however, he had left Scotland for good. He did not like the country as he saw it.
But the times were greatly against his doing so. Glasgow was not at all a pleasant place in those narrowly
provincial days for any one who had seen much of the world. The Highlands were as bad. They were full
of angry Jacobites, who could never forgive the redcoats for defeating Prince Charlie. Yet Wolfe was not
against the Scots as a whole; and we must never forget that he was the first to recommend the raising of
those Highland regiments which have fought so nobly in every British war since the mighty one in which
he fell.
During the next year and part of the year following, 1754-55, Wolfe was at Exeter, where the
entertainments seem to have been more to his taste than those at Glasgow. A lady who knew him well at
this time wrote: 'He was generally ambitious to gain a tall, graceful woman to be his partner, as well as a
good dancer. He seemed emulous to display every kind of virtue and gallantry that would render him
amiable.'
In 1755 the Seven Years' Peace was coming to an end in Europe. The shadow of the Seven Years' War
was already falling darkly across the prospect in America. Though Wolfe did not leave for the front till
1757, he was constantly receiving orders to be ready, first for one place and then for another. So early as
February 18, 1755, he wrote to his mother what he then thought might be a farewell letter. It is full of the
great war; but personal affairs of the deeper kind were by no means forgotten. 'The success of our fleet in
the beginning of the war is of the utmost importance.' 'It will be sufficient comfort to you both to reflect
that the Power which has hitherto preserved me may, if it be His pleasure, continue to do so. If not, it is
but a few days more or less, and those who perish in their duty and the service of their country die
honourably.'
The end of this letter is in a lighter vein. But it is no less characteristic: it is all about his dogs. 'You are to
have Flurry instead of Romp. The two puppies I must desire you to keep a little longer. I can't part with
either of them, but must find good and secure quarters for them as well as for my friend Caesar, who has
great merit and much good humour. I have given Sancho to Lord Howe, so that I am reduced to two
spaniels and one pointer.' It is strange that in the many books about dogs which mention the great men
who have been fond of them - and most great men are fond of dogs - not one says a word about Wolfe.
Yet 'my friend Caesar, who has great merit and much good humour,' deserves to be remembered with his
kind master just as much, in his way, as that other Caesar, the friend of Edward VII, who followed his
master to the grave among the kings and princes of a mourning world.
CHAPTER IV. THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 1756-1763
Wolfe's Quebec campaign marked the supreme crisis of the greatest war the British Empire ever waged:
the war, indeed, that made the Empire. To get a good, clear view of anything so vast, so complex, and so
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